Estimated reading time: 35 minutes.
make_videos.py or record and embed your own.)Task analysis answers the question: what, exactly, must the learner be able to do, and what does that performance consist of? It turns a goal ("nurses will administer medications safely in the new system") into a map of the knowledge, skills, and decisions the goal requires. That map determines the objectives (Module 4), the sequence and strategies (Module 6), and the assessments. Without it, designers teach what they happen to know rather than what the performance requires.
Dick and Carey call this "instructional analysis" and split it into two questions: what type of learning is the goal, and what subordinate skills does it require?
Gagné's taxonomy of learning outcomes is the standard classification. The type of outcome determines the analysis method and, later, the instructional conditions.
| Outcome type | What the learner does | Example | Analysis method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verbal information | States, recalls, describes | Name the five rights of medication administration | Cluster analysis: group the information into logical sets |
| Intellectual skills | Discriminates, classifies, applies rules, solves problems | Decide whether a scanned wristband matches the order | Hierarchical analysis: identify subordinate skills |
| Cognitive strategies | Manages own thinking and learning | Choose a checking strategy under time pressure | Hierarchical analysis plus the intellectual skills it governs |
| Motor skills | Performs a physical procedure | Scan a wristband with a handheld scanner | Procedural analysis: list the steps in order |
| Attitudes | Chooses to act in a certain way | Choose to scan every time, even when the scanner is slow | Analyze the behavior chosen and the intellectual skills and information that support it |
Most real goals combine types. A procedural task includes decisions (intellectual skills) at branch points and requires information at several steps. Classify the overall goal, then classify each component as you decompose it.
For goals that are performed as a sequence of steps, list the steps in order, with the decisions at each branch. Use a flowchart or a numbered list with sub-steps. For each step, note the inputs (what the learner needs to see or know), the action, and the result that signals the step is complete.
Example fragment, medication administration:
Procedural analysis reveals branch points, which are where errors happen and where practice should concentrate. It also exposes steps that the expert performs automatically and would never think to teach.
For intellectual skills, start with the goal and ask repeatedly: "What must the learner already be able to do in order to learn this?" Each answer is a subordinate skill; place it below the goal and ask the question again. Stop when you reach the entry skills the learners already have (from your learner analysis). The result is a hierarchy in which lower skills must be learned before higher ones.
Example: to decide whether a mismatch alert requires stopping, the learner must be able to interpret the alert type, which requires distinguishing wrong-patient, wrong-drug, and wrong-time alerts, which requires reading the alert display, which is an entry skill.
For verbal information, group the items into meaningful clusters (by function, by location, by time) so that they can be taught and remembered as sets. Clusters often map onto job aids.
Experts make decisions they cannot easily articulate. Cognitive task analysis (CTA) uses structured interviews, think-aloud protocols, and critical-incident recall to surface the cues experts attend to, the decisions they make, and the errors novices make at the same points. CTA is expensive and is reserved for complex, high-stakes tasks, but even a light version (asking an expert to narrate a recent difficult case and probing at each decision) improves any analysis. Clark and colleagues summarize the evidence that instruction based on CTA outperforms instruction based on expert self-report.
Draw a line across the bottom of your hierarchy. Everything below it is assumed; everything above it is taught. Where you draw the line comes from the learner analysis. If learners vary widely, you may need two lines and two paths.
Use whichever representation fits the outcome type:
Whatever the form, number every element so objectives can reference them in Module 4.
Choose one goal from your course design project. Classify it, decompose it with the appropriate method to at least three levels, mark the entry-skill line, and have at least one performer review the result.
Clark, R. E., Feldon, D. F., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., Yates, K. A., & Early, S. (2008). Cognitive task analysis. In J. M. Spector et al. (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed., pp. 577–593). Routledge.
Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2015). The systematic design of instruction (8th ed.). Pearson. Chapters 3 and 4.
Gagne, R. M., Wager, W. W., Golas, K. C., & Keller, J. M. (2005). Principles of instructional design (5th ed.). Wadsworth.
Jonassen, D. H., Tessmer, M., & Hannum, W. H. (1999). Task analysis methods for instructional design. Lawrence Erlbaum.